
Education
University of California, Irvine School of Law
Bar Admissions
California, New York
Brian Hardingham
Senior Attorney
Brian Hardingham is a Senior Attorney with the Debtors’ Prison Project. He litigates cases challenging the illegal use of money bail, excessive fees attached to conditions of pretrial release and probation, the imposition of excessive fines, and other scenarios in which a person’s inability to pay money leads to jail or other adverse consequences in the criminal legal system. His work has contributed to the release of hundreds of people from pretrial detention and several million dollars in damages being paid to people who were jailed following their inability to pay probation fees and other similar charges. He and his co-counsel received the Daily Journal’s 2024 California Lawyer Attorney of the Year (CLAY) Award in the civil rights category for their work on Urquidi v. Los Angeles, a case that dramatically reduced the use of pre-arraignment money bail in Los Angeles County.
Brian is very interested in collaborating with activists, public defenders, people with their own criminal cases, and others who encounter situations where a person’s inability to pay money leads to harsh results in their criminal cases. He is based in the Bay Area in California and litigates cases nationwide.
Before joining Public Justice, Brian clerked for Judge Jane Stranch on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and Judge Cormac Carney in the Central District of California. Brian was a member of the inaugural class at University of California, Irvine School of Law, and received his J.D. in 2012.
Prior to law school, Brian was a senior investigator at New York City’s Civilian Complaint Review Board and a field organizer for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.